Sacrament of Penance

Authority level: Dogma
GuideChrist's institution of Penance, its forgiveness through priestly absolution, and its essential acts belong to Catholic dogma; faculties, forms of celebration, censures, frequency, and related duties are also governed by canon and liturgical law.
Contents

The Sacrament of Penance is the sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ in which a baptized person who repents and confesses sins to a duly authorized priest receives sacramental absolution, reconciliation with God and the Church, and grace for conversion.

The sacrament of penance[15] (also commonly called the sacrament of reconciliation or confession) is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church (known in Eastern Christianity as sacred mysteries). Through this sacrament, the faithful are absolved of sins committed after baptism and reconciled with the Christian community. During reconciliation, mortal sins must be confessed for the sacrament to be valid and, while not strictly required, venial sins may also be confessed for devotional reasons. According to the Church’s dogma and constant practice, only ordained priests may grant absolution. The Council of Trent also taught that absolution in the sacrament of penance is not merely a declaration that sins are forgiven, but is a judicial act exercised by a priest with proper authority over the penitent.[16][17]

Names and nature

The Church calls this sacrament Penance because it consecrates the sinner's personal and ecclesial conversion; Reconciliation because it restores communion with God and the Church; Confession because truthful acknowledgment of sins is essential; Forgiveness because God grants pardon through absolution; and Conversion because it turns the baptized person back toward the Father's mercy.

Penance is one of the two sacraments of healing. Baptism forgives every sin and gives new life, but the baptized remain capable of grave sin and daily failure. Christ therefore willed a sacramental remedy that does not repeat baptism but restores or strengthens baptismal grace through judgment, mercy, and a renewed commitment to live as his disciple.

The sacrament is a real act of Christ through the Church, not merely a therapeutic conversation or symbolic declaration that forgiveness has already occurred. When a properly disposed penitent confesses and a priest validly absolves, God forgives the sins. The priest acts as minister, physician, judge, and father under Christ, never as owner of mercy.

Reconciliation has both vertical and ecclesial dimensions because every sin wounds communion even when hidden. Absolution reconciles the sinner with God and the Church; it can remit eternal punishment due to mortal sin, restore sanctifying grace, give peace of conscience, revive merit, and provide spiritual strength. Temporal consequences may remain and call for satisfaction, indulgence, repair, or patient purification.

Institution by Christ

On Easter evening the risen Christ breathed the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and declared that the sins they forgive are forgiven and those they retain are retained. This commission gives the Church a real ministry of judgment: a minister must be able to know what is forgiven or retained, which ordinarily entails personal disclosure of serious sins and discernment of repentance.[1]

Christ's ministry already joins forgiveness to visible ecclesial signs. He forgives the paralytic and confirms his authority by healing, receives sinners, calls Zacchaeus to restitution, entrusts binding and loosing to Peter and the apostolic body, and depicts heaven rejoicing over repentance. The paschal grant in John 20 brings these acts into a sacramental ministry for the Church.

Only God forgives sins by his own authority. The Catholic sacrament does not deny this truth; it depends on it. The incarnate Son chose to exercise divine mercy through his humanity and now uses ordained ministers as instruments. Saying that a priest absolves is therefore no more competition with God than saying that a priest baptizes or consecrates by Christ's command.

The power passed through apostolic ministry to bishops and presbyters. Its historical celebration developed in discipline and form, but the Church did not invent the underlying authority during the Middle Ages. Public penance, episcopal reconciliation, private confession, and modern ritual are changing ecclesial forms of the one post-baptismal ministry received from Christ.

The acts of the penitent

Contrition

Contrition is sorrow of the soul and detestation for sin committed, together with the resolve not to sin again. It is the first act of the penitent and cannot be replaced by embarrassment, fear of discovery, or desire for social relief. The required purpose concerns sincere present resolve; it does not demand certainty that weakness will never lead to another fall.

Perfect contrition arises from love of God above all things and remits venial sin and even mortal sin when it includes the firm intention to receive sacramental confession as soon as possible. Imperfect contrition arises from consideration of sin's ugliness or fear of punishment and is itself a gift that disposes a sinner for sacramental absolution, though it does not justify apart from the sacrament.

Confession

A penitent must confess all mortal sins after baptism that have not yet been directly remitted in individual confession, according to kind and number as far as they can be remembered after diligent examination. Relevant circumstances must be included when they change the moral species of an act. Deliberate concealment of a known mortal sin makes the confession sacrilegious and invalid.

Genuine inability excuses material completeness. A forgotten mortal sin is forgiven with the others when the confession is sincere, but it should be mentioned in the next confession if later remembered. The Church does not require impossible arithmetic, exhaustive autobiography, graphic detail, or disclosure of other people's identities beyond what is necessary to state one's own sin honestly.

Satisfaction

The confessor assigns a penance proportionate to the nature and number of sins, the penitent's condition, and the need for healing. Prayer, works of mercy, self-denial, restitution, or another practicable act may serve. Performing it does not purchase forgiveness; it cooperates with grace, begins repair, and joins the penitent to Christ who alone made satisfaction sufficient for salvation.

A person must repair harm where reasonably possible: return stolen property, correct calumny, fulfill neglected obligations, or seek reconciliation without creating greater injustice. Some consequences cannot be undone, and imprudent disclosure may harm victims or reveal another person's secret. The confessor guides proportionate repair under moral law rather than demanding theatrical gestures.

Mortal and venial sin

Mortal sin requires grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. It destroys charity in the heart and excludes from sacramental Communion until reconciliation, apart from exceptional conditions described by the Church. Grave matter alone does not establish the subjective guilt of a particular person, because knowledge, freedom, habit, fear, coercion, and psychological factors can reduce culpability.[2]

Venial sin wounds charity without extinguishing sanctifying grace. It can be forgiven through prayer, acts of charity, reception of the Eucharist, and other means, yet regular confession of venial sins is strongly recommended. Sacramental grace helps form conscience, resist patterns, grow in humility, and receive Christ's healing with greater precision.[3]

A confessor distinguishes objective moral truth from subjective imputability without making either disappear. False rigor can treat every imperfection as mortal; laxity can rename grave choices as harmless because they are common. Sound confession identifies the act, relevant intention and circumstances, degree of freedom, and concrete path of conversion under the Church's moral teaching.

Doubtful sins may be mentioned as doubtful rather than asserted as certain. A person conscious of no mortal sin may confess selected venial sins or previously forgiven sins as matter for devotion. The sacrament is not validly celebrated by inventing guilt; truthful self-accusation and real contrition remain necessary even when the matter is devotional.

Minister, faculties, and absolution

Ordained minister

Only a bishop or priest can validly absolve. Diaconal service, lay spiritual direction, counseling, and communal penitential prayer can prepare conversion but cannot supply sacramental absolution. The minister must also possess the faculty to exercise the power for the penitent, granted by law or competent authority, because sacramental judgment belongs within ecclesial governance.

A priest validly ordained but lacking faculties cannot ordinarily absolve. In danger of death, however, any priest validly absolves any penitent from any sins and censures, even if an approved priest is present and even if the priest otherwise lacks faculties. The supreme law is salvation of souls, and the Church supplies generously at the decisive hour.

Form and intention

The priest extends his hand according to the rite and pronounces the sacramental formula, whose essential words in the Roman Rite are I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He must intend to perform the Church's sacramental act. A blessing, advice, or assurance without absolution is not equivalent.

Eastern Catholic formulas may be deprecative, declarative, or combine both according to the approved rite. Their validity does not depend on reproducing Latin wording, because the Catholic Churches possess legitimate sacramental traditions. The minister must use the proper liturgical form faithfully rather than improvise language that leaves the act uncertain.[4]

Celebration of the sacrament

Individual and integral confession followed by absolution is the sole ordinary means by which a member of the faithful conscious of grave sin is reconciled with God and the Church. The rite includes welcome, Scripture or exhortation, confession, acceptance of a penance, an act of contrition, absolution, praise, and dismissal. Pastoral brevity need not make the encounter mechanical.

The Church provides a rite for reconciliation of several penitents with individual confession and absolution. A common Liturgy of the Word, examination, and prayers can manifest ecclesial conversion, but each penitent still confesses individually. This form should not be confused with a non-sacramental penitential service that lacks personal confession and absolution.

General absolution without prior individual confession is lawful only when danger of death leaves insufficient time or when grave necessity exists under strict canonical judgment. A large crowd, scheduled feast, pilgrimage, or shortage that could be addressed through ordinary planning does not itself suffice. Recipients must be properly disposed and intend to confess grave sins individually when opportunity returns.[5]

The ordinary place is a church or oratory, and confessionals with a fixed grille must be available according to law so the faithful may choose anonymity. Confession may occur elsewhere for a just cause. Face-to-face celebration can be pastorally helpful but cannot be imposed as the only practical option where the law protects the penitent's choice.

The sacramental seal

The seal of confession is inviolable. A confessor may never betray a penitent by words or in any manner for any reason, directly or indirectly. No civil demand, threat, public danger, or apparent good authorizes disclosure. Direct violation incurs the Church's gravest canonical penalties because sacramental trust belongs to Christ and the penitent, not to the minister.

An interpreter and anyone who in any way acquires knowledge of sins from confession are also bound to secrecy under the applicable law. The penitent is not bound by the sacramental seal and may reveal his or her own confession, though prudence and justice still apply. A recording or publication of confession violates sacred privacy and can incur canonical penalty.

The priest may not use knowledge from confession to the penitent's detriment even when disclosure is avoided. A superior may not use sacramental knowledge for external governance. This distinction between internal sacramental forum and external forum protects freedom, although facts learned independently outside confession remain available according to ordinary moral and legal duties.

The seal does not prevent the confessor from requiring a penitent to take lawful steps as evidence of repentance, including surrender, restitution, avoidance of danger, or reporting where morally required. The priest cannot make absolution conditional on permission to disclose the confession himself. He acts within the sacrament while urging the sinner to accept responsibility outside it.

Effects and disposition

The sacrament restores sanctifying grace when it has been lost, remits sins, reconciles the penitent with the Church, brings peace and serenity of conscience, and gives spiritual strength for Christian combat. It also anticipates the judgment of God through a tribunal of mercy in which the sinner freely accuses himself and receives Christ's healing verdict.

Valid absolution requires at least imperfect contrition and intention to amend. A person who positively intends to continue an adulterous union, theft, fraud, abuse, or another grave sin without change lacks the required disposition. The confessor should help distinguish weakness and fear of future failure from a present refusal to abandon sin; only the latter requires withholding absolution.

Absolution may be deferred when disposition is genuinely absent, but it is never a weapon for political preference, personal control, or humiliation. The minister must follow doctrine and law, ask only necessary questions, avoid curiosity, respect the penitent's dignity, and impart absolution whenever doubt about disposition can prudently be resolved in favor of mercy.

Reception does not remove every temporal effect or habit. Grace restores friendship with God while healing usually unfolds through penance, prayer, restitution, virtue, spiritual direction, and avoidance of near occasions. Repeated confession of the same kind of sin can be fruitful when repentance is sincere; recurrence alone does not prove the prior sacrament false.

Frequency and preparation

The faithful who have reached the age of discretion must confess grave sins at least once a year, and anyone conscious of mortal sin must not receive Communion without prior sacramental confession unless a grave reason exists and no opportunity is available, in which case perfect contrition and intent to confess promptly are required. Minimal compliance should not define mature sacramental life.

Frequent confession, often monthly or at another prudent interval, has long been recommended by saints and popes. It exposes habitual patterns, strengthens humility, and applies sacramental grace. Frequency should serve conversion rather than anxiety, and a regular confessor can help a person distinguish useful discipline from compulsive repetition.

Preparation includes prayer to the Holy Spirit and an examination of conscience in light of the commandments, Beatitudes, duties of state, and concrete relationships. Good examinations name actions and omissions rather than producing vague self-dislike. They should include failures of charity and justice without turning every emotion, temptation, or involuntary thought into sin.

After confession the penitent gives thanks, performs the assigned penance promptly, repairs harm, and adopts practical means against recurrence. These may include ending access to temptation, seeking treatment, changing financial practice, reconciling with another person, or accepting accountability. Sacramental grace heals freedom and calls for cooperation rather than passive expectation.

Scrupulosity and pastoral care

Scrupulosity is a pattern of unreasonable moral fear, recurring doubt, and inability to trust forgiveness. It can accompany obsessive-compulsive disorder or other anxiety and is not cured by endless general confession. A scrupulous penitent should ordinarily follow one prudent confessor, obey clear limits, confess only certain mortal sins, and seek competent mental-health care when indicated.

A confessor should be gentle, doctrinally clear, and alert to trauma, coercion, abuse, addiction, and mental illness. Spiritual counsel does not replace medical or psychological treatment, and therapy does not replace absolution where sin is present. Integrated care distinguishes guilt from symptoms while upholding responsibility according to actual knowledge and freedom.

Children require age-appropriate preparation that teaches trust, truth, and concrete moral responsibility without terrifying imagery. First confession precedes First Communion in the Latin discipline. Parents and catechists should model regular reception and avoid treating the sacrament as punishment administered after discovery of wrongdoing.

Persons returning after decades, those uncertain how to confess, and those burdened by grave sin should be welcomed. The priest can guide the structure, help with number and kind, and propose a manageable penance. No sin exceeds God's mercy when repentance is real; presumption that refuses conversion and despair that refuses mercy are both opposed to the sacrament.

Indulgences, censures, and reserved cases

An indulgence remits before God temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. It is not absolution, permission to sin, purchase of pardon, or release from the duty of restitution. Confession commonly forms part of the conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence, but the two acts remain doctrinally distinct.[6]

Certain grave offenses carry canonical censures whose remission may be reserved to a competent authority, although law grants confessors and penitentiaries faculties in defined circumstances. The sinner should not assume that a reserved censure makes forgiveness inaccessible. The confessor applies the law, seeks delegated faculty when needed without violating the seal, or uses provisions for urgent cases.

The Apostolic Penitentiary serves the internal forum at the universal level and grants absolutions, dispensations, commutations, and other favors in cases reserved to the Holy See. Petitions are handled through confessors without revealing the penitent's identity. This institution demonstrates that canonical order can protect both justice and complete sacramental secrecy.[7][8]

Danger of death removes ordinary reservation barriers because any priest can absolve from every sin and censure. If the person recovers, the law may require recourse or fulfillment of obligations in certain cases. Pastoral care should make these provisions known so that fear of complexity never keeps a dying person from seeking Christ's mercy.

Historical development

Ancient public penance

The early Church practiced baptismal forgiveness and also reconciled baptized sinners through episcopal ministry, prayer, fasting, exclusion, and readmission. Grave public sins could involve a lengthy public order of penitents and, in some places, only one solemn reconciliation. Variations in evidence caution against imagining one universal apostolic manual, but ecclesial authority to forgive is clear.

The controversy over whether apostasy, murder, or adultery could be forgiven tested the Church's identity as holy and merciful. Rigorist movements denied reconciliation to some post-baptismal sinners; Catholic pastors defended Christ's power to forgive through the Church while maintaining demanding penance. The eventual discipline preserved both objective seriousness and the inexhaustibility of grace.

Private and repeatable confession

Monastic spiritual disclosure and the practice carried by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries helped establish repeatable private penance in Western Europe. Penitential books assigned works according to offenses, sometimes mechanically, while pastoral practice matured. The move from primarily public canonical penance to private confession changed discipline and accessibility without changing the sacrament's divine institution.

The Fourth Lateran Council required annual confession for the faithful who had reached discretion. Scholastic theology clarified matter, form, contrition, jurisdiction, and sacramental causality. The Council of Trent then defined Penance as a true sacrament distinct from baptism, defended integral confession and priestly absolution, and answered Reformation denials without claiming every medieval custom was immutable.[9]

Modern renewal

The modern Roman rite restored richer Scripture, ecclesial reconciliation, communal preparatory forms, and varied formulas while retaining individual confession and absolution as ordinary. John Paul II opposed reduction of sin to social structures and reduction of the sacrament to counseling, while encouraging patient availability and recovery of personal responsibility.[10][11]

Declining practice in some countries has produced weak moral formation and loss of sacramental confidence. Renewal requires preaching sin and grace together, reliable confession schedules, doctrinally sound confessors, dignified spaces, and personal witness. Mere campaigns cannot replace a parish culture in which mercy, Eucharistic reverence, and conversion visibly belong together.[12][13]

Eastern Catholic practice

Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate Penance according to their own liturgical and canonical patrimonies. The priest may stand with the penitent before an icon, cover the bowed head with an epitrachelion, use a deprecatory absolution, and emphasize healing by a spiritual physician. These forms validly mediate the same forgiveness and do not need Latin ceremonial additions.

Eastern traditions often connect confession with spiritual fatherhood and preparation for the Eucharist, while frequency and fasting discipline vary. Spiritual guidance and sacramental confession may occur together but remain conceptually distinguishable. A monk who is not a priest can be a spiritual elder but cannot impart sacramental absolution.

The Eastern code requires individual confession and absolution as the ordinary means of reconciliation, protects the seal, regulates faculties, and provides for necessity. Differences in reserved sins, formulas, or jurisdiction reflect lawful discipline. Catholics may confess to a duly authorized Catholic priest of another Church sui iuris when the conditions of law are met.[14]

Catholic law also permits limited sacramental sharing with properly disposed Eastern Christians outside full communion in defined circumstances. This provision rests on recognition of their valid priesthood and sacraments, not on indifference to ecclesial separation. The minister must observe the governing canons, pastoral prudence, and the discipline of the other Church.

Common objections and misunderstandings

The objection that confession should be made to God alone overlooks Christ's choice to give the apostles a ministry that can forgive or retain. Catholics confess to God through the priestly minister, and the entire rite asks the Father of mercies for pardon through the death and Resurrection of the Son in the Holy Spirit. Human mediation is Christ's gift, not a barrier erected against him.

Confession is not a license to repeat sin. Sacramental validity requires present contrition and purpose of amendment, while grace strengthens a struggle that may remain difficult. A person who falls again needs renewed repentance; a person who plans the sin and treats confession as advance permission has not repented and cannot receive valid absolution on that basis.

The sacrament is not principally an interrogation. The penitent accuses himself, and the confessor asks what is needed for integrity, disposition, and counsel. Inappropriate curiosity, political questioning, and humiliating detail violate good ministry. At the same time, a penitent cannot demand that the priest affirm conduct contrary to divine law as the price of receiving confession.

Psychological relief can accompany absolution but does not define it. A person may feel no immediate consolation and still be truly forgiven; another may feel relief after disclosure without sacramental reconciliation. Faith trusts Christ's objective promise, while emotion, memory, restitution, and habits often require time and additional care.

History

In the New Testament, Christians are admonished to "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another" at their gatherings,[18] and to be forgiving people.[19][20] In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to the Apostles, after being raised from the dead, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained".[21] The early Church Fathers understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and to their lawful successors, the bishops and priests, for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after baptism.[22]

Early practice

In the middle of the 2nd century, the idea of one reconciliation/penance after baptism for the serious sins of apostasy, murder, and adultery is suggested in the book of visions, The Shepherd of Hermas.[23] The episkopos (bishop) was the main liturgical leader in a local community.[24] He declared that God had forgiven the sins when it was clear that there was repentance, evidenced by the performance of some penance,[24] and the penitent was readmitted to the community.[25]

In the 1st and 2nd centuries of Christianity, penance was likely a public act. However, by the time of Cyprian of Carthage, confession itself was no longer public,[26] specifically in cases of private sins such as having entertained thoughts of denying the faith under persecution.[27] Basil of Caesarea similarly made concessions whereby adultery could be forgiven in private confession. With the additional influence of the monastic practice of "disclosure of thoughts" (logismoi), private confession to a priest became dominant by the 5th century.[28]

Lifelong penance was required at times, but from the early fifth century for most serious sins, public penance came to be seen as a sign of repentance. At Maundy Thursday excluded serious sinners, especially now-repentant excommunicated individuals, were readmitted to the community and communion along with catechumens. This practice was still current in the late medieval period, for example the Use of Sarum, but lapsed with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.[29] Confusion entered in from deathbed reconciliation with the church, which required no penance as a sign of repentance, and the ritual would begin to grow apart from the reality.[30]

Beginning in the 4th century, with the Roman Empire becoming Christian, bishops became judges, and sin was seen as breaking of the law rather than as fracturing one's relationship with God. A new, more legalistic understanding of penance emerged at episcopal courts, where it became payment to satisfy the demands of divine justice. According to Joseph Martos, this was facilitated by a misreading of John 20:23 and Matthew 18:18 by Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo I, who thought it was the "disciple" and not God who did the forgiving, though only after true repentance.[31] The acts of councils from the fourth to the sixth century show that no one who belonged to the order of penitents had access to Eucharistic communion until the bishop reconciled him with the community of the church. Canon 29 of the Council of Epaone (517) in Gaul says that from among penitents only apostates had to leave Sunday assembly together with catechumens before the Eucharistic part commenced. Other penitents were present until the end but were denied communion at the altar of the Lord.[32]

A new approach to the practice of penance first became evident in the 7th century in the acts of the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône (644–655). Bishops gathered in that council were convinced that it was useful for the salvation of the faithful when the diocesan bishop prescribed penance to a sinner as many times as they would fall into sin (canon 8).

Celtic influence

Because of its isolation, the Celtic Church for centuries remained fixed with its forms of worship and penitential discipline which differed from the rest of the Christian Church. It had no knowledge of the institution of a public penance in the community of the church which could not be repeated, and which involved canonical obligations.[33] Celtic penitential practices consisted of confession, acceptance of satisfaction fixed by the priest, and finally reconciliation. They date back to 6th century.

Penitential books native to the islands provided precisely determined penances for all offences, small and great (an approach reminiscent of early Celtic civil and criminal law).[34] Walter J. Woods holds that "over time the penitential books helped suppress homicide, personal violence, theft, and other offenses that damaged the community and made the offender a target for revenge."[35] The practice of so-called tariff penance[36] was brought to continental Europe from Ireland, Scotland and England by Hiberno-Scottish and Anglo-Saxon monks.[37]

The Celtic practice led to new theories about the nature of God's justice, about temporal punishment God imposes on sin, about a treasury of merits in heaven to pay the debt of this punishment, and finally about indulgences to offset that debt.[38]

Late Middle Ages

With the spread of scholastic philosophy, the question arose as to what caused the remission of sins. From the early 12th century Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard reflected the practice that contrition and confession (even to laymen or, in rare cases, a nun or beguine[39]) assured of God's forgiveness, but remorse for one's sins was necessary. Absolution referred only to the punishment due to sin. But at this time Hugh of St. Victor taught on the basis of the "power of the keys" (John 20:23[40] and Matthew 18:18)[41] that absolution applied not to the punishment but to the sins, and this hastened the end to lay confession.

From the third century on, a private form of confession that bishops finally put a stop to by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) that made confession to a priest obligatory within a year of the sinning, and has enshrined the practice of private confession ever since. In the 13th century the Dominican philosopher Thomas Aquinas tried to reunite the personal "matter" (contrition, confession, satisfaction) and ecclesial "form" (absolution).[42] But the Franciscan Duns Scotus gave support to the prevalent opinion at the time that absolution was the only essential element of the sacrament, which readmitted the penitent to the Eucharist.[43]

In the 11th and 12th centuries a new, legalistic theory of penances had crept in, as satisfying the divine justice and paying the penalty for the "temporal punishment due to sin". This was followed by a new theory of a treasury of merits which was first put forward around 1230.[44] As a means of paying this penalty, the practice grew of granting indulgences for various good works, drawing on "the treasury of the Church's merits". These indulgences later began to be "sold" (i.e., made conditional for the wealthy on some approved alms-giving), leading to Martin Luther's dramatic protest.[45]

Since the Council of Trent

In the mid-16th century the bishops at the Council of Trent[46] retained the private approach to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and decreed that indulgences could not be sold. Some Protestant Reformers retained the sacrament as sign but shorn of Canonical accretions. However, for Catholics after Trent "the confession of mortal sins would be primarily regarded as a matter of divine law supported by the ecclesiastical law to confess these within a year after they had been committed".[47]

The problem that "has dominated the entire history of the sacrament of reconciliation [...] is the determination of the roles of the subjective and personal factors and the objective and ecclesiastical factor in penance".[48] From the mid-19th century, historical and biblical studies called to mind that repentance is required before God can forgive sins and the sinner can be readmitted to the Christian community through the sacrament.[49] Sacramental theology had always taught that contrition was necessary for a valid confession. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) decreed in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that the "rite and formulas for the sacrament of penance [were] to be revised so that they more clearly express both the nature and effect of the sacrament".[50] In a post-conciliar document, The Constitution on Penance, Pope Paul VI emphasized "the intimate relationship between external act and internal conversion, prayer, and works of charity".[51]

Sacrament of reconciliation in pandemics

On March 20, 2020, the Apostolic Penitentiary issued a note on clarifications regards the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular it was noted that where it is impossible for the faithful to receive sacramental absolution, forgiveness for sins (even grave ones) may be obtained by perfect contrition and the believer's firm intention to make a sacramental confession as soon as possible.[52][53]

Contemporary confessional practice

Canon law requires confession along with purpose of amendment and absolution from the priest for all grave sins for reconciliation with God and with the Catholic Church, except in danger of death.[54]

Especially in the West, the penitent may choose to confess in a specially constructed confessional. Since the Second Vatican Council, besides the previous practice of kneeling behind a screen, the option of sitting facing the priest has been added in most confessionals. For those who prefer anonymity, the provision of an opaque screen separating the priest from the penitent is still required.[54]

The priest administering a sacrament, such as Reconciliation, must have permission from the local bishop, or from his religious superior.[54] However in urgent need any ordained priest may grant absolution to a penitent.[54]

Rite

The current Rite of Penance was produced in 1973 with two options for reconciliation services, to restore the original meaning of sacraments as community signs. The 1983 Code of Canon Law brought some further changes. The penitent may kneel on the kneeler or sit in a chair (not shown), facing the priest. The current book on the Rite of Penance prescribes the following (42–47). The sign of the cross precedes a greeting of encouragement to trust in God. The priest may read a short passage from the Bible that proclaims God's mercy and calls to conversion. All mortal sins must be confessed, while confession of venial sins also is recommended but not required. The priest may emphasize repentance and offer counsel, and always proposes a penance which the penitent accepts and then recites an act of contrition. The priest imparts absolution. Since the Council of Trent, the essential words of absolution have been: "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."[55] In the renewal of the sacrament the more ample form is:

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace. And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.[56]

Finally, the priest invites the penitent to "give thanks to the Lord, for he is good", to which the penitent responds, "His mercy endures forever" (Psalms 136:1).[57] The priest dismisses the penitent "in peace".

Before the absolution, the penitent makes an act of contrition, a prayer declaring sorrow for sin. While older forms might only mention sin as offence against God, newer forms mention harm done to one's neighbor.[58]

Since the Second Vatican Council, reconciliation services have been encouraged, to emphasize the communal element in the sacrament. Such services include readings from scripture, a homily, and prayers, followed by individual confession.[59] In extenuating circumstances where general absolution is given, true repentance is still required and individual confession at some opportune time.[54] Such circumstances include where large numbers are in danger of death, or are deprived of the sacrament by grave lack of priests, but not simply from the number of penitents at major feasts or pilgrimages.[54] By official declaration, one day is a sufficiently "long time" to justify use of the Third Rite, a reconciliation service with absolution, but requiring individual confession after.[60], pp. 137–38 Individual and integral confession and absolution (as opposed to collective absolution) is the only ordinary way in which a person conscious of mortal sins committed after baptism can be reconciled with God and the church.[54]

Although spiritual direction is not necessarily connected with the sacrament, the sacrament of penance has throughout the centuries been one of its main settings, enabling the Christian to become sensitive to God's presence, deepen the personal relationship with Christ, and attend to the action of the Spirit in one's life.[61] In the 20th century, during the Second Vatican Council, new approaches were taken in the presentation of this sacrament, taking into account the concern of scrupulosity, or the exaggerated obsessive concern for detail. This further distinguished the role of penance from forms of psychotherapy.[62]

Necessity and frequency

After having reached the age of discretion, each member of the faithful is obliged to confess faithfully their grave sins at least once a year.[63] This yearly confession is necessitated for performing one's "Easter duty", the reception of Communion at least once during the Easter season.[64][54] This must be preceded by Reconciliation if one has sinned gravely. Grave sin involves serious matter, sufficient knowledge of its seriousness, and sufficient freedom from any interior or exterior factors that would mitigate one's responsibility for the harm done.[65] While private confession of all grave sins is now required, confession of venial sins is recommended but not required.[54] Popes have written on the possible benefits of "devotional confession" of venial sins for strengthening of resolutions, divine encouragement, Christian growth, and interior peace.[66]

All contrition implies sorrow of spirit and "detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again." Such contrition is "perfect" if it flows from divine charity but "imperfect" if it flows only from fear of penalties or of eternal damnation. While perfect contrition forgives serious sin, one must also have the intention to fulfill church teaching and confess the sin if or when it becomes possible.[67][68]

In order for the sacrament of penance to be validly celebrated, the penitent must confess all mortal sins. If the penitent knowingly conceal any mortal sin, then the confession is invalid and the penitent incurs another sin: sacrilege. A person who has knowingly concealed a mortal sin must confess the sin he has concealed, mention the sacraments he has received since that time, and confess all the mortal sins he has committed since his last good confession.[69] If the penitent forgets to confess a mortal sin in confession, the sacrament is valid and their sins are forgiven, but he must tell the mortal sin in the next confession if it again comes to his mind.[69]

Sacramental seal

The sacramental seal binds all those who hear or overhear a penitent confess a sin for the purpose of absolution, to not reveal the identity of the penitent and the sin. Those who may overhear sins confessed, such as an interpreter, are bound by the same seal as the priest.[54] A priest who violates this seal is automatically excommunicated, with pardon reserved to the Holy See. Others who violate the seal may also be excommunicated. Careless speaking that might lead people to connect a specific penitent with a sin confessed is also punishable.[54]

While there have been martyrs who have been executed for refusing to break the seal, such as John of Nepomuk,[70] in the United States the inviolability of the seal is recognized before the law.[71]

Spiritual meaning

The church teaches, based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, that confession is not a tribunal or criminal court, where one is condemned by God like a criminal, but a "wedding banquet hall, where the community celebrates Easter, Christ's victory over sin and death, in the joyful experience of his forgiving mercy." In confession, the church believes, God judges a person in the sense of bringing to light their sins, by granting the person the ability to confess their sins to the confessor, then grants the person repentance and, through the confessor, grants the person forgiveness. God's forgiveness restores the person to "the brightness of the white robe of baptism, a garment specifically required to participate in the [wedding] feast."[72]

Manuals of confession

Beginning in the Middle Ages, manuals of confession emerged as a literary genre. These manuals were guidebooks on how to obtain the maximum benefits from the sacrament. There were two kinds of manuals: those addressed to the faithful, so that they could prepare a good confession, and those addressed to the priests, who had to make sure that no sins were left unmentioned and the confession was as thorough as possible. The priest had to ask questions, while being careful not to suggest sins that perhaps the faithful had not thought of and give them ideas. Manuals were written in Latin and in the vernacular.[73]

Such manuals grew more popular as the printed word spread, and in 2011 had made a transition to electronic form as well. The first such app on the iPhone to receive a bishop's approval was mistakenly reported as an app for the sacrament itself;[74] in reality the app was an electronic version of this long-standing tradition of material to be used in preparing oneself to make a good confession.[75]

Eastern Christianity and perspectives on renewal

Unlike Western Christianity which saw its liturgical practice disrupted during the Migration Period of the Early Middle Ages, Eastern Christianity has retained more the understanding that ecclesiastical reconciliation had in Patristic times. In Eastern Christianity sacraments are called "sacred mysteries". The obligation to confess may be less rigid and this may include only one's most regrettable sins, to experience God's forgiving love. The practice of absolution or of a given penance varies greatly. The emphasis is on conversion of heart rather than on enumeration of sins.[76]

Confession and penance in the rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church, even to our own day, preserve the character of liberation and healing rather than of judgment. Ruling and healing are seen as the same charism, as in early Christian times.[77] Remission of sin is granted on the basis of sincere repentance and confession. Absolution proclaims God's forgiveness of the sin. Penance is entirely therapeutic; it reinforces the penitent's efforts at Christian growth. "Forgiveness of sin procured through sincere and heartfelt repentance is complete and perfect, needing no additional fulfillment," and so "the Orthodox Church most strenuously rejects [...] Latin teaching of penalties and punishments, eternal and temporal remission, the treasury of merits, [...] (and) purgatorial fire."[78]

A perceived ongoing need for reform and development of the sacrament in the Roman rite is argued in a book with a chapter on "From Confession to Reconciliation; Vatican II to 2015".[79] In another book on the sacraments, widely used in universities and seminaries, Joseph Martos explains how he thinks much still needs to be done to bring together what he had learned through biblical and historical studies, "sacramental theory", and the way the sacrament is experienced today, "sacramental practice".[80] There has been widespread demand for more general use of the Third Rite, a reconciliation service with general absolution but requiring individual confession afterwards. However, Canon Law as revised under Pope John Paul II in 1983 has forestalled change for the time being.[81][60] While arguing for much wider use of community reconciliation services with general absolution and not requiring individual confession, Catholic theologian Ladislas Orsy anticipated, in 1978, further developments in the church's legislation on the Sacrament of Reconciliation and asserted that "we cannot stop; truth and mercy must continue to unfold."[82]

References

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